I have been alive for eighteen years

And while they say my life is about to begin

Out in that big, big world

Full of people and places and principles

I feel as if I have run out of time

I have lived the past eighteen years as a

Low-budget version of a break-budget idea

Of myself, the worst thing to portray.

Growing up was the easy part

But oh, how difficult it became

When your favorite colored crayons transitioned into your favorite subjects into your dream school and are your applications finished have you sent in your transcripts what grade do I need to keep my A my B I'm barely passing

Barely breathing

I can't breathe.

I have been alive for eighteen years

And hopefully, I will be alive for many more.

You see, I'm afraid of death

What human being isn't, you must be thinking

But to me, death is the ultimate proof that I have been

A failure from start to finish

The underdog that people stopped rooting for

Because there was nothing worth supporting.

I have talent. I have intelligence. I have wit.

But none of it was good enough, none of it mattered, they tell me

They told me to follow my dreams, to put my heart and soul into the pages I wrote and the stories I told whether through costume or prose or poetry

And it was not enough. And suddenly my self-worth changed.

Who am I?

The age-old question.

Am I the version of myself everyone sees, has seen for eighteen years? Am I the girl everyone knew for her brain and her choice in books? Am I the girl who was second best at everything, everything, everything? Am I the girl with a temper, the girl with fury, who wanted to rip down the world's institutions and rebuild them to be fair

Because nothing about this is fair

Life is a game that I have yet to learn the rules to

But do I want to learn them? Do I want to conform to this harsh society telling kids to be themselves but only if themselves are enough for a full ride to Harvard? Do I want to be the stress that high school seniors place upon themselves, forcing them to lie awake at night and wonder what they could have done better as they stare up at their ceilings with bloodshot, misty eyes?

Do I want?

What do I want?

The answer is I do not know.

I want fame. I want fortune. I want security and success and belonging. I want proof that I am worth something as a person, as a writer, as a student. I want proof that the past eighteen years were not for naught.

The future is a very scary thing. I do not know what it will hold.

Sometimes I find myself thinking about who I'll marry, what I will accomplish, so on and so on.

It is all terribly frightening. What if I don't marry anyone? Will I learn to be happy on my own? Or will I still project all the heartbreak in my eighteen years of living onto those who do not love me in return?

What if I am not a successful author? Will I learn to be happy with whatever career I land in? Or will I still return to my stories, now being told for no one but myself?

The prospect of the future comes to me in hands from beyond the grave, cold and icy and unshakable.

I do not know who I am

I do not know who I will be

All I know is that I have been alive for eighteen years

Eighteen long years

Eighteen short years

Filled with smiles and sorrow

And I do not know who I have yet to become.

The real me is waiting for a chance to come out

To be bold and daring and ambitious

Seductive and alluring and successful

But she is still me

I am still her

And we both are shy and scared and confused

As to what this future holds for us both.

Eighteen years has cleaved a knife down the sense of myself

I am what those schools wanted to see

I am what I want to see

I am a number of questions without answers, dreams without realities, and stars without constellations

Upon which I wish each and every night for a chance to be heard, be seen, be true to myself

So these eighteen years will not have been for nothing.

But my life has yet to begin.

And the journey has yet to start.

But if the next eighteen are like the first, I'm afraid I have run out of time.